Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Spider-Man's Commencement Speech

SoSG Orel just forwarded this to me. It's awesome, as are many of McSweeney's Short Imagined Monologues. Behold, Spider-Man Speaks At Career Day, by Rick Stoeckel:

Hi, kids. I just thought I'd swing by and give a little speech to you youngsters about picking a career that you'd like to do for the rest of your life.

I was going to do my regular "with great power comes great responsibility" spiel, but your principal actually already covered that in his introduction of me. It's nice to have an introduction, don't get me wrong, but he stole a bit of my thunder when he went on to literally say all of my famous lines.

Honestly, right now, I'm pretty angry with your principal, kids. As you'll learn when you grow up, sometimes the worst kind of evil isn't some super villain bent on world domination; it is a stupid principal who screws other people with his simple lack of commonsense. For example, if you have a guest speaker, maybe check with him what he's going to cover in his speech so you don't trample all over his material. Also, if you're going to go over someone's origin story, at least get it accurate. It was not an insect that bit me; it was an arachnid. Spiders are arachnids, not insects. Spiders have eight legs. It's basic third grade science. He might as well have said that it was a dog that bit me.

Now is the time where I was going to throw in a joke such as, "Is that potential I smell or is that just my spider sense tingling?" But your principal also used that line when you guys were entering the auditorium.

So, plan B. [...]

Definitely worth a read.

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